I'd agree with you on that too. The article says 7 more hours a week is a workaholic though and based on my experience with friends and family - they too make no distinction on whether you enjoy it or not. Even if you tell them, they don't have that experience to understand.
Kind of funny though. Nobody tells an athlete they "train too much". Or a researcher that they "research too much".
I probably should have worded that better. The elite athletes and professional researchers - sure that happens.
I guess I'm trying to say - if it's not your career - if you spent 7+ hours per week training for your physical body, practicing your sport or doing research nobody would say anything about it.
So and so is fit and exercises a lot. They look good, that's their jam. So and so is researching a lot or working on a really hard problem. Nice. Good for them.
You work harder than the average on your brain and/or business - "you work too much"
I'm not sure why people can't differentiate that for many:
1) going above and beyond is necessary to level up (especially to make your business a success)
2) people can find that process enjoyable and rewarding (especially if they do it with people they like)
I think the self-employed specifically get a bad rap about "working too much". I'm sure there are some fortunate souls, but I don't know any business owners that clocked in and clocked out average work weeks to success.
Although I agree that there's a workaholic problem for many as they scale the ladder or consume themselves with work to avoid some other issue in their life.
I just don't like the notion that if you work more than the average Joe you don't have a work/life balance or it will cause all these issues.
Just pulled this up and its worse than I would have guessed - "Only 15% of workers are engaged at their job". This is globally. In the US it's 30% engaged [1]
That's pretty telling to me then. If you aren't engaged at your job - you will think 7 more hours a week is a bad idea and a workaholic. And probably make yourself feel better about using those 7 hours for your hobby or whatever is not your "engaged job"
Kind of funny though. Nobody tells an athlete they "train too much". Or a researcher that they "research too much".